Recent reviews by Star Captain Hee Haw

this game bass slaps

Good game. The combat is responsive yet deliberate, punishing overextension and mashing. The encounters are well planned and don't simply dump a bunch of enemies on the player. The aesthetics are fun. It's got that synthwave 80s neon styling, but combines it with a fantasy-type setting, and the result is like "Tron by way of Studio Ghibli". The music has a few really stand-out tracks, with good grooves that don't wear themselves out, and the more atmospheric pieces do their job admirably. There are two parts of the story in the game, and the story involving Narita Boy is boilerplate "man has to go to Big Bad and hit him with a sword to save the realm" stuff, which is probably for the best because the vast majority of the story is put into the flashbacks and worldbuilding, and trying to tell a complex story in the present of the game while also going over how the present came to be would be way overstuffed. I liked the game a lot.

this game is chill af and is excellent

Jokes that don't work, unclear mechanics, and obvious padding make this a horrendous and frustrating slog.

The writing in general is very on-the-nose and obvious, and it's hard to derive much humour at all from it. Most of it revolves around "hey, we're paying homage to this old game, do you remember this game?" The premise of the game is fine, but I feel it would work better with fewer gimmicks and less mugging for the audience.

The game plays like a standard overhead Zelda clone, with a brief sidescrolling section à la Link's Awakening. The gameplay is good, and works well, for the most part. The worst part of it is a forced stealth section, which includes the player getting a cardboard box to hide under. This is where I had a major problem, since it wasn't clear that the box reduces the sight range of the enemies as well as allowing you to avoid patrols by standing still. I was stuck here for a while until I accidentally found out I could walk in front of enemies with impunity.

Everything came to a head in the first major city, where you have to do boring tasks that would be obvious filler content in any other game (except here, where it's probably a "tribute" but it's still just as boring), while your party members complain about them the entire time. It's not fun and it's not pleasant and it's not witty.

It looks promising, but half-assed Xinput support, a non-descript and samey setting, and police chases that last far, far too long mar the experience.

Using a controller with this game is awkward, because, while the game does support Xinput controllers, it doesn't use the Xinput button labels, preferring to refer to buttons as "B1" et al. This bizarre choice requires me to think about what button I'm supposed to hit, instead of just telling me to "press A" to do what I need to.

The police in the game are everpresent, and wanted levels can be mandatory in the game, which means that chases happen often and last far too long. The first mission in Empire City proper forces the player into a police chase in a city that they will have had no time to acclimatize to, and thus are at a marked disadvantage as they have no good ways to break line of sight. Streets are often bordered with solid walls of buildings, offering few alleyways or side streets in which to ditch the cops. Chases consist of driving around, the player trying to lose the cops while hoping they're moving at least vaguely in the direction of the objective (because the objective marker will sometimes disappear while in a chase), only to find that they're now further away than before. Cops often frustratingly show up when approaching objectives, wasting more time. The detection range of the cops is also larger than the radar, meaning they can and will spot the player before the player even knows the cops are there. Everything relating to the police in this game seems constructed to annoy and frustrate, and it gets old EXTREMELY fast.

I really wanted to enjoy this game, but spending 20+ minutes running from police just isn't my idea of a good time. It's just tedious.

Mad Max is a sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, taking place shortly after that movie. The game has two major elements: driving between areas, and then killing everyone within those areas and taking their stuff. There are a number of diversions, like races or mine defusing, but you will spend most of the time either punching people or driving to a new place to punch them.

Mad Max's combat feels really good. It's based on the Arkham Asylum model, with the addition of being able to use a shotgun at any time to instantly kill people. The shotgun has a limited number of shells available, and they can be very scarce. The problem I have with the combat is the camera, which does not have the same sort of intelligence the Arkham games do. Enemies can frequently attack from off-screen, unless you manually reposition the camera. Attacks from off-screen are never acceptable, and forcing the player to take their thumb off the controls to fiddle with the camera is not a good idea.

The driving is... okay. You press the trigger, car go, the other trigger, car stop. The combination of samey scenery and long distances between points of interest can make the cars (at least in the early game) feel very underpowered. The car combat is pretty good, with a number of ways to take out enemy drivers.

The overall problem with the game is that there's a bunch of annoying ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to wade around in order to get at the fun parts. If the player wants to race, they can't just decide to race. They need to know where the race course is and eliminate all the enemy snipers remotely near it, otherwise they'll shoot the player's tires out during the race. The dust storms happen randomly and without warning. Getting caught in one on foot is certain death. Getting caught in one while driving increases your odds of survival, as long as your car doesn't get smashed by flying debris or you drive into a big rock or off a cliff because visibility is zero. Stopping to wait out the storm will take up to 5 minutes where you can't do much of anything. The dust storms exist because they were in the movie, and serve no constructive purpose in the game

The core of the game is a lot of fun, but there's a lot of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to wade through. If you think you can stand it, go for it.

The core concept of Bedlam (mixing FPS settings and taking weapons from one to the other) is interesting and can lead to some fun puzzle-solving designs, but this game does not capitalize upon this, instead opting for a perfectly linear shooter with a huge, clumsy inventory.

A perfect example of this is the magic barrier separating Not-Skyrim's lower village from the upper village: the way it's done in-game is via finding the sword and opening the barrier, but I have a rocket launcher. Could I not just rocket jump over the wall into the upper village (as far as I know, I cannot)? Could I not just blow up the gate? With all these weapons at my disposal, I can't use them to defy conventions or find alternate solutions. It's disappointing.

The game also suffers from writing that's a bit too on-the-nose and it falls apart halfway through. The end of the Not-Halo section was a particularly egregious low point, as the cloaked enemies are hard to see, hard to hit, and don't telegraph their attacks. I spent 5 minutes looking for one that was cloaked and refused to do anything, including shoot at me. This was after spending 5 more minutes looking for two other guys who had bugged out and had not moved from their spawn point. The final boss is reminiscent of the Nihilanth in Half-Life, except not challenging at all whatsoever. Once you clear out the mooks that spawn in, you can attack the boss with impunity, and the only possible deaths are from falling off the edge.

The $20 they're asking is too much to pay for a game of this length and simplicity. If you're truly interested, I would suggest waiting for a sale.